Still Waters Run Deep: Experience never to be forgotten

On Saturday I had an awesome opportunity to attend The Office Wrap Party in Scranton and it turned out to be quite an incredible day.

By Kelly Waters

On Saturday I had an awesome opportunity to attend The Office Wrap Party in Scranton and it turned out to be quite an incredible day.

I'll have to admit that I'm not your average fan of the show, but I have seen episodes before and I know a lot of the characters. One of them, Jim, is played by John Krasinski, who happens to be one of my favorite actors, so you can get I had a goal in mind: to meet him.

Well that goal was met and I'm very excited about that.

Other actors from the show, both major and minor, attended the day as well and yes, I got to meet a few more of them. All in all I met the actors for Pam, Kevin, Phyllis, Toby, David Wallace and of course Jim. Some I was able to get both a photo and autograph from and some I only got their autograph, which didn't bother me.

My goal was to meet John and as long as that happened I was golden. I just lucked out that I got to meet more too. I even have a shot with one of the producers, Steve Burgess, so that was pretty cool.

John was the hardest to meet but again, I'm so glad it paid off. I had to push through the crowd, literally get stuck between people, and yell out to him to make sure it happened.

I got near the front and there was a nice guy ahead of me who was willing to help out. I called out John's name and he looked right at me. The other guy was able to move over so I could get next to John for a picture. The girl who was going to take it accidentally hit a wrong button and John was like, "here I have long arms. Let's do it this way."

So, fangirl moment, John Krasinski touched my phone and took our pic, as we were basically touching head to head. What can I say? How often can you say you met one of your favorite actors? Of course I'd be grinning like an idiot and taking it all in.

The writer's panel was awesome and we got a great insight into some behind the scenes stuff. The parade/events at Courthouse Square were great too. Follow that up with some time at PNC Field where we got to see bloopers from the show, hear a Q & A from the cast and even fireworks at the end of the night.

Another fangirl alert coming up.

One of the biggest highlights of the day was the surprise appearance by Steve Carell at PNC Field.

As press we were right on the field, the closest I'll ever be to any action, even if this wasn't a baseball game. When Steve Carell came out my mouth dropped and I was the one taking pictures with my mouth literally hanging open for a few minutes, from shock that I was inches away from him as we were getting shots of him coming out onto the field.

I couldn't believe I was so close to one of the biggest names in the business and the biggest name from The Office. Being that close to him was great enough for me, but what I didn't realize was that later on it was going to get a whole lot better.

When the cast was getting ready to leave the field, they split up and went to different parts of the stadium to say hi to fans, share some high fives and maybe more photos. Well I just happened to be in the section where Steve Carell was coming and guess what! I got to shake his hand!!

I will never have proof of it, only a memory, but I certainly wouldn't make that up. He was so nice and I got a great smile from him as we shook hands. It was absolutely unreal.

I also got to high five Craig Robinson who plays Darryl.

Even now I'm thinking did all of that really happen? Then I remember I have pictures and video reminding me that it did.

The long, exhausting day and sunburn were totally worth meeting John Krasinski and shaking Steve Carell's hand.

A huge shout out goes to Greg for giving me this opportunity and memories I will never forget. Thanks so much.

Waters is a staff writer for The Wayne Independent and can be reached at kwaters@wayneindependent.com